Disney's latest live-action remake of one of their animated classics, The Little Mermaid (1989), begins with the following passage from Hans Christian Anderson's original tale over visuals of a roaring sea:
"But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more." — Hans Christian Anderson
Going in, I had little to no expectations other than Halle Bailey's breathtakingly beautiful singing voice. After watching it, I think that it is pretty fun. Nowhere near as fun as the original, but it is enjoyable enough for a new generation of fans to experience for themselves. Having seen this movie, several meaningful and more grounded changes were made to the characters and settings that justified the quote's inclusion, as mentioned earlier. On the other hand, other decisions felt more in line with a modern Disney live-action cash grab that disappointed me. Without future ado, here is my spoiler-filled review of 2023's The Little Mermaid.
The story of Disney's iteration of The Little Mermaid follows Ariel (played by Halle Bailey), a young and headstrong mermaid who falls in love with a human prince named Eric (played by Jonah Hauer-King), much to the disapproval of her father, King Triton (played by Javier Bardem). Ariel is then tempted into making a deal with Ursula the sea witch (played by Melissa McCarthy), to turn her into a human for three days at the cost of losing her voice. Will Ariel express her love for Eric before it is too late? If you are familiar with the animated film, you know it all works out in the end.
First off, Bailey is amazing as Ariel, for her golden voice instantly melts your heart and comes from deep within her soul. Her showstopping rendition of "Part of Your World" stands strong on its own two feet (so to speak) while honoring those before her, specifically Jodi Benson, Ariel's original voice actress.
Fun fact: Benson makes a great cameo appearance as a market vendor during Ariel and Eric's day out in the village. She is seen offering Ariel a sample of food from her booth with a fork, a sweet passing of the "dinglehopper" from one Ariel to the next.
Bailey also perfectly captures Ariel's independence, curiosity, and vulnerability, albeit more nuanced than her animated counterpart, which works well for a live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid like this one. Her actions speak louder than words (figuratively and literally), especially during her more intimate and emotional scenes shared with Eric.
Speaking of whom, Hauer-King's interpretation of Eric is a vast improvement over his animated counterpart. The decision to include a backstory that mirrors Ariel's, only on the surface and involving conflict between him and his adoptive mother, Queen Selina (played by Noma Dumezweni), regarding his desire to open up the island kingdom's ports to the outside world, is a welcome change. Not only does this make him more sympathetic, but it gives him a more distinct personality and sense of overall character motivation.
Bardem does his part as a stern and authoritative father like Triton, who eventually softens up, coupled with the additional backstory of his wife and Ariel's mother dying at the hands of a human and his distrust of them ever since. This new backstory is not covered extensively, but it works well enough for me.
Melissa McCarthy does her best as Ursula channeling her inner Divine (one of the visual inspirations for the original animated character) and the late Pat Carroll (the original animated Ursula's voice actress). This time around, Ursula is King Triton's sister and Ariel's aunt. I didn't mind this change; however, her introduction scene is heavy with expository dialogue about her backstory and motives, and it felt amateurish in execution. That said, she embodied the character quite well once the exposition was out of the way.
On a side note, I was pleasantly surprised by the brief but memorable performance from Jessica Alexander, the actress who plays Ursula's human alter ego, Vanessa. Despite her limited screentime, she harnessed Ursula's devious and maniacal demeanor while standing on her own two feet as a performer. This is best exemplified in the third act, where after Ariel and her animal friends crash the engagement party at the castle (not a wedding onboard a ship as seen in the animated film) between Eric and Vanessa, Ariel gets her voice back by smashing Ursula's necklace but turns back into a mermaid before she and Eric get to kiss, Vanessa cackles maniacally with a deranged look in her eyes that briefly stole all my attention from the main characters.
Another character whom I was pleasantly surprised by was Eric's confidante, Grimsby (played by Art Malik), for in the original version, he was simply there as Eric's advisor. Here, he serves as that and a father figure to Eric and has much more to do in this version, like covering for him and Ariel as they go out exploring the village and continuing to look out for Eric during the third act by hiding Queen Selina's engagement ring during the chaos between Vanessa/Ursula and Ariel.
Disney musical legend Alan Menken returns to score this movie, and most of his and the late Howard Ashman's original songs return, with a few new additions thanks to lyrics from Hamilton's Lin-Manuel Miranda. Spoiler alert: neither "Daughters of Triton" nor "Les Poissons" are in this film. The former is a missed opportunity, for I would have loved to have heard it sung again for nostalgia's sake, and Ariel's renamed sisters are underused here and serve mainly as background characters. As for the latter song, it is understandable because the slapstick-heavy gags from the animated version would not necessarily translate well to a live-action setting.
Moving on to the new songs, they are hit-and-miss. For instance, a melancholy reprise of "Part of Your World" during the third act is pretty good. Yet the other songs feel like they were ripped straight from an unrelated Lin-Manuel Miranda production (specifically Eric's new song, "Wild Uncharted Waters" and Ariel's new song, "For the First Time") and, more often than not, did not feel consistent with the musical tone set by Menken and Ashman's music. One song, in particular, took me out of the viewing and listening experience altogether, specifically, "The Scuttlebutt", which is essentially a rap battle between Scuttle and Sebastian that I assume Miranda could not help but include, given his immense talent for incorporating rap and creative lyrics into the projects he works on.
As for the visual side of things, the computer-generated re-designs for Sebastian the crab (voiced by Daveed Diggs), Flounder (now a sergeant major instead of a tropical fish) (voiced by Jacob Tremblay), and Scuttle (now a northern gannet instead of a seagull) (voiced by Awkwafina) are (somewhat) better at displaying emotion than the ultra-realistic animals from the 2019 remake of The Lion King (1994). That said, they didn't do much for me, as they constantly reminded me about how much more lively and lovable their original animated counterparts are and how much the latter holds up after all these years.
The underwater scenes, like the new songs, are hit-and-miss. Sometimes, they look bright and colorful with plenty of moments to praise, but some look so dimly lit, desaturated, and gloomy that I occasionally had to squint to see what was being shown on-screen. Either the direction of the poor visual effects artists is lackluster, or the visual effects work was so subpar that they used dim lighting to hide it from being noticed by the vast majority of eagle-eyed viewers like me.
After watching this live-action remake, I realized that the movie's true villain is not the sea witch, Ursula, but rather Disney. For every classic they have produced within the last century, it appears that, like every mega-corporation in existence, they have (for the most part) abandoned what made the company successful from the beginning, top-tier hand-drawn animation, groundbreaking innovations in filmmaking, and lifting up and honoring the work of their animators, both past and present.
Walt Disney once said:
"We keep moving forward — opening up new doors and doing new things — because we're curious. And curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."
If only the people currently running Walt's company had listened to those words before ultimately selling itself out for financially exploitable nostalgia and little to no creative experimentations or innovations like years past, all to please their donors on Wall Street. While the end results of most of Disney's seemingly endless remakes of their animated classics are enjoyable enough at best, at worst, they look and feel dulled down, and considering the rate at which Disney intends to go through their catalog of animated films for a quick profit, somewhat depressing.
All of that said, this recent live-action remake is pretty decent. There are still a few gripes that I have about a few minor plot details (what was the point in Ursula placing a temporary amnesia spell on Ariel during her time on land, thus taking away Ariel's sense of urgency about the stakes at hand?); however, it is still one of Disney's better outings. Will Disney take a breather from endlessly remaking their animated classics anytime soon? It doesn't seem too likely. That said, I commend this remake for trying to differentiate itself from the original animated film while staying true to most of what made the original work. I recommend seeing this one, but mainly for Halle Bailey's star-making performance and some of this film's positive changes to characters like Eric. Now, off for me to rewatch the 1989 classic.
Final Score: 7 out of 10
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